Jim Walker enters an abandoned home on Cruft Street. The house smells of mold, the floors are covered in dirt and grime and the way to the second floor is boarded up. Indianapolis is no stranger to neighborhood blight, but this property, owned for years by a company based outside of Indianapolis, is in particularly bad shape.

Then Walker, the long-haired, big-dreaming director of the arts group Big Car Collaborative, spots a quirk in the architecture of a doorway. He sees possibility. “This is actually really cool,” he says with a smile. “We could do something with this.”

Big Car is calling Garfield Park its new home as part of an ambitious plan to turn the neighborhood into an arts mecca. It celebrated its new headquarters, located in an abandoned tube factory, during a First Friday reception last Friday. The group aims to be cultural pioneers in an area where one-in-five people is unemployed and four-in-10 don’t have high school degrees.

The project, backed by a $1.5 million investment from grants and local investors, includes opening an audio art studio called Listen Hear (it will have its own radio station) and buying several vacant homes to turn into artist apartments. The plan is not just to make the place artsy, but to convince investors that Garfield Park, especially the corridor east of Shelby Street, is worth a second chance.

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Walker’s group has blended socially conscious neighborhood building with contemporary art since its early days in Fountain Square. Now, the 12,000-square-foot Tube Factory artspace, once a shell of a building, is a hip artist hangout.

Also known as the Tube, the building's design pays homage to the history of the area. The space sports meat racks from the former Bud’s Supermarket repurposed into book shelves, and wood torn from the site built into standing tables. A mural by artist Emily Gable sports cartoon depictions of peanuts, milk and tubes, a reference to the products that were once made in the factory.

But Walker knows that up-and-coming neighborhoods are often vulnerable to rising rents that change the neighborhood. If Garfield Park becomes Indy’s next arts village, artists and gallery spaces might get priced out by condos and chains, and the long-time residents would be forced out. Walker says he’s doing everything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“We know artists can improve a neighborhood,” he said. “But how can you fill up vacant buildings and improve the place in a way that can be maintained long term, where residents and artists don’t get priced out?”

Big Car and Riley Area Development Corporation bought up most of the empty properties on Cruft Street. They own six properties, including an abandoned church on Cruft Street and three homes on Nelson Street. The groups are currently raising money to rehabilitate the homes into affordable, rent-controlled studios and living spaces for artists.

“This is the evolution from a gallery into more of a locale. It’s establishing a normalcy of space, like a bar with ‘regulars’ from the neighborhood,’” said Jesse Sugarmann, a California-based artist who is the first to showcase art at the Tube's exhibit room. His art project, “The People’s 500,” celebrates the Indianapolis 500 by placing everyday people on the racetrack.

The project, which blends creativity, engineering, residential development and contemporary art, is an example of “guerrilla city planning,” said Big Car co-founder Shauta Marsh. That’s because Big Car’s mantra centers around “placemaking” and examining how people interact with public spaces. The group is also slated to bring back its popular Spark Monument Circle project, which turned Indy’s most iconic roundabout into a music, art and activity-filled playground.

Walker says Big Car will be part of Garfield Park for the long term. Far from a creative project that swoops in and out of a neighborhood, the group’s efforts are rooted in partnerships with locals.

“Neighborhoods have a lot more success when actual residents are involved, versus just business owners and landowners” he said. “We’re working with people who don’t look at this as just an investment. They look at it as their life.”